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The rise of the farming lineages

Explore Y chromosomal lineages and the significant R1b haplogroup expansion in Western Europe during the Neolithic era.

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There's an open access paper/preprint on Y chromosomal lineages that just came out, A calibrated human Y-chromosomal phylogeny based on resequencing. Since it is open access you can read the whole thing (it's short). Let me quote from the discussion:

Nevertheless, the rapid expansion of R1b (and possibly I1) in Europe contrasts with the less starlike expansion of E1b1a in Africa, which has been associated with the spread of farming, ironworking and Bantu languages in Africa over the last 5,000 years (Berniell-Lee et al. 2009). Both R1b and E1b1a samples are from a mixture of indigenous donors (from Europe and Africa, respectively) and admixed American donors, so sampling strategy does not provide an obvious explanation for the difference. Instead, the different phylogenetic structure, with far more resolution of the individual E1a1a branches, may reflect expansion starting from a larger and more diverse population, and thus retaining more ancestral diversity.

R1b ...

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